Machine learning for recognizing and interpreting embedded information card content

ABSTRACT

Metadata for highlights of a video stream is extracted from card images embedded in the video stream. The highlights may be segments of a video stream, such as a broadcast of a sporting event, that are of particular interest to one or more users. Card images embedded in video frames of the video stream are identified and processed to extract text. The text characters may be recognized by applying a machine-learned model trained with a set of characters extracted from card images embedded in sports television programming contents. The training set of character vectors may be pre-processed to maximize metric distance between the training set members. The text may be interpreted to obtain the metadata. The metadata may be stored in association with the portion of the video stream. The metadata may provide information regarding the highlights, and may be presented concurrently with playback of the highlights.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application claims the benefit of U.S. ProvisionalApplication Ser. No. 62/673,412 for “Machine Learning for Recognizingand Interpreting Embedded Information Card Content” (Attorney Docket No.THU010-PROV), filed May 18, 2018, which is incorporated herein byreference in its entirety.

The present application claims the benefit of U.S. ProvisionalApplication Ser. No. 62/673,411 for “Video Processing for EnablingSports Highlights Generation” (Attorney Docket No. THU009-PROV), filedMay 18, 2018, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

The present application claims the benefit of U.S. ProvisionalApplication Ser. No. 62/673,413 for “Video Processing for EmbeddedInformation Card Localization and Content Extraction” (Attorney DocketNo. THU012-PROV), filed May 18, 2018, which is incorporated herein byreference in its entirety.

The present application claims the benefit of U.S. ProvisionalApplication Ser. No. 62/680,955 for “Audio Processing for DetectingOccurrences of Crowd Noise in Sporting Event Television Programming”(Attorney Docket No. THU007-PROV), filed Jun. 5, 2018, which isincorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

The present application claims the benefit of U.S. ProvisionalApplication Ser. No. 62/712,041 for “Audio Processing for Extraction ofVariable Length Disjoint Segments from Television Signal” (AttorneyDocket No. THU006-PROV), filed Jul. 30, 2018, which is incorporatedherein by reference in its entirety.

The present application claims the benefit of U.S. ProvisionalApplication Ser. No. 62/746,454 for “Audio Processing for DetectingOccurrences of Loud Sound Characterized by Short-Time Energy Bursts”(Attorney Docket No. THU016-PROV), filed Oct. 16, 2018, which isincorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

The present application is related to U.S. Utility application Ser. No.13/601,915 for “Generating Excitement Levels for Live Performances,”filed Aug. 31, 2012 and issued on Jun. 16, 2015 as U.S. Pat. No.9,060,210, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

The present application is related to U.S. Utility application Ser. No.13/601,927 for “Generating Alerts for Live Performances,” filed Aug. 31,2012 and issued on Sep. 23, 2014 as U.S. Pat. No. 8,842,007, which isincorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

The present application is related to U.S. Utility application Ser. No.13/601,933 for “Generating Teasers for Live Performances,” filed Aug.31, 2012 and issued on Nov. 26, 2013 as U.S. Pat. No. 8,595,763, whichis incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

The present application is related to U.S. Utility application Ser. No.14/510,481 for “Generating a Customized Highlight Sequence Depicting anEvent” (Attorney Docket No. THU001), filed Oct. 9, 2014, which isincorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

The present application is related to U.S. Utility application Ser. No.14/710,438 for “Generating a Customized Highlight Sequence DepictingMultiple Events” (Attorney Docket No. THU002), filed May 12, 2015, whichis incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

The present application is related to U.S. Utility application Ser. No.14/877,691 for “Customized Generation of Highlight Show with NarrativeComponent” (Attorney Docket No. THU004), filed Oct. 7, 2015, which isincorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

The present application is related to U.S. Utility application Ser. No.15/264,928 for “User Interface for Interaction with Customized HighlightShows” (Attorney Docket No. THU005), filed Sep. 14, 2016, which isincorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

The present application is related to U.S. Utility application Ser. No.______, for “Video Processing for Enabling Sports Highlights Generation”(Attorney Docket No. THU009), filed on the same date as the presentapplication, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

The present application is related to U.S. Utility application Ser. No.______, for “Video Processing for Embedded Information Card Localizationand Content Extraction” (Attorney Docket No. THU012), filed on the samedate as the present application, which is incorporated by referenceherein in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present document relates to techniques for identifying multimediacontent and associated information on a television device or a videoserver delivering multimedia content, and enabling embedded softwareapplications to utilize the multimedia content to provide content andservices synchronously with delivery of the multimedia content. Variousembodiments relate to methods and systems for providing automated videoand audio analysis that are used to identify and extract importantevent-based video segments in sports television video content, toidentify video highlights, and to associate metadata with suchhighlights for pre-game, in-game and post-game review.

DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART

Enhanced television applications such as interactive advertising andenhanced program guides with pre-game, in-game and post-game interactiveapplications have long been envisioned. Existing cable systems that wereoriginally engineered for broadcast television are being called on tosupport a host of new applications and services including interactivetelevision services and enhanced (interactive) programming guides.

Some frameworks for enabling enhanced television applications have beenstandardized. Examples include the OpenCable™ Enhanced TV ApplicationMessaging Specification, as well as the Tru2way specification, whichrefer to interactive digital cable services delivered over a cable videonetwork and which include features such as interactive program guides,interactive ads, games, and the like. Additionally, cable operator“OCAP” programs provide interactive services such as e-commerceshopping, online banking, electronic program guides, and digital videorecording. These efforts have enabled the first generation ofvideo-synchronous applications, synchronized with video contentdelivered by the programmer/broadcaster, and providing added data andinteractivity to television programming.

Recent developments in video/audio content analysis technologies andcapable mobile devices have opened up an array of new possibilities indeveloping sophisticated applications that operate synchronously withlive TV programming events. These new technologies and advances incomputer vision and video processing, as well as improved computingpower of modern processors, allow for real-time generation ofsophisticated programming content highlights accompanied by metadata.

SUMMARY

Methods and systems are presented for automatic real time processing ofsporting event television programming content for embedded informationcard localization and embedded text string recognition andinterpretation. In at least one embodiment, a machine-learned characterclassification model is generated based on a training set of charactersextracted from a plurality of information cards (card images) embeddedin sporting event television programming content. The extractedcharacter images are processed to generate a standardized training setof multidimensional character vectors in a multidimensional vectorspace. A principal component analysis (PCA) is then performed on thistraining set, such that orthogonal basis vectors are derived spanningthe vector space of the training set.

In at least one embodiment, the dimensionality of the training setvector space is reduced by selecting a limited number of representativeorthogonal vectors from the orthogonal basis. A classification model isgenerated for this specific set of projected alphanumeric charactersappearing in embedded information cards by utilizing a machine learningalgorithmic structure, which may be a known machine learning algorithmsuch as a multi-class support vector machines (SVM) or convolutionalneural network (CNNs) algorithm.

In at least one embodiment, sporting event television programmingcontent is processed in real-time to extract queries (embeddedcharacters from character strings in information cards), and to set up aquery infrastructure with individual character images extracted fromembedded character strings. In another embodiment, the individual queryimages are normalized to generate a query vector for each querycharacter; subsequently, these query vectors are projected onto theorthogonal basis spanning the training vector space to generateprojected query vectors. In yet another embodiment, the projected queryvectors are recognized (predicted) by applying a previously learnedcharacter classification model on each projected query vector. Finally,predicted query characters (forming a predicted character string) areinterpreted by meaning extraction. In at least one embodiment, meaningextraction is performed based on the known character string positions invarious television programming card image types, as well as based on theknowledge of locations of individual characters within a characterstring. In at least one embodiment, the extracted information isautomatically appended to sporting event metadata associated with thesporting event video highlights.

In at least one embodiment, a method for extracting metadata from avideo stream includes storing at least a portion of the video stream,identifying one or more card images embedded in one or more video framesof the portion of the video stream, and subsequently processing the oneor more information card images to extract text. In yet anotherembodiment, the text extracted from the information card images isinterpreted to generate and store metadata in association with theportion of the video stream.

In at least one embodiment, the video stream may be a broadcast of asporting event. The portion of the video stream may be a highlightdeemed to be of particular interest to one or more users. The metadatamay be descriptive of the highlight.

In at least one embodiment, the method may further include playing thevideo stream for a user during at least one of identifying the one ormore card images, processing the one or more card images, andinterpreting the text.

In at least one embodiment, the method may further include playing thehighlight for a user and presenting the metadata to the user duringplayback of the highlight. The metadata may provide real-timeinformation related to the highlight and a timeline of the card imagesfrom which the metadata have been obtained.

In at least one embodiment, extracting the text may include identifyingone or more character strings within the one or more card images, andrecording a location and/or a size of a character image of a card imageof the one or more card images that corresponds to each character of theone or more character strings.

In at least one embodiment, extracting the text may further includedisambiguating character boundaries of characters of the one or morecharacter strings by performing multiple comparisons of detectedcharacter boundaries, and purging the character boundaries that appeartoo close to each other.

In at least one embodiment, extracting the text may further includeperforming image validation for characters of the one or more characterstrings by establishing a contrast ratio between low and high intensitypixel counts.

In at least one embodiment, interpreting the text may include generatingqueries based on the text, generating n-dimensional query featurevectors, projecting the n-dimensional query feature vectors onto atraining set orthogonal basis, applying the projected n-dimensionalquery feature vectors to a classification model to produce predictedqueries, and extracting meaning of the text from the predicted queries.

In at least one embodiment, the method may further include generatingtraining set feature vectors, and using the training set feature vectorsto derive the training set orthogonal basis.

In at least one embodiment, the method may further include generatingtraining set feature vectors, and using the training set feature vectorsand derived training set orthogonal basis vectors to generate theclassification model.

In at least one embodiment, interpreting the text may further includeusing at least two selections from the group consisting of a stringlength of one or more character strings within the text, a position ofcharacter boundaries and/or characters within the text, and a horizontalposition of character boundaries and/or characters within the text.

In at least one embodiment, storing the metadata in association with theportion of the video stream may include storing a video frame number ofthe one or more video frames, associated with queries.

In at least one embodiment, interpreting the text may includeascertaining field positions of characters of one or more characterstrings of the text, ascertaining alphanumeric values of the characters,and using the field positions and alphanumeric values to sequentiallyinterpret the one or more character strings.

In at least one embodiment, interpreting the text may further includeobtaining positional and other information regarding one or more cardfields of each of the card images, and using the positional and otherinformation to compensate for one or more possible missing frontcharacters of the one or more character strings.

In at least one embodiment, a method for generating a characterrecognition and classification model is described in relation to theautomatic video highlight generation. The method includes extracting andstoring at least a portion of the video stream for which automatichighlight metadata is to be generated, identifying one or moreinformation card images embedded in one or more video frames of theportion of the video stream, and processing the one or more informationcard images to extract a plurality of character images. The methodfurther includes generating training feature vectors associated with theplurality of character images, processing the training feature vectors,using at least some of the training feature vectors to train a characterrecognition and classification model, and subsequently storing theprocessed training set and the classification model. The trainingfeature vectors may be processed in a manner that increases uniquenessof the training feature vectors by increasing mutual metric distance ofthe training feature vectors, and/or by reducing dimensionality of anoverall vector space containing the training feature vectors.

In at least one embodiment, the method may further include prior togenerating the training feature vectors, normalizing the characterimages to a standard size and/or a standard illumination.

In at least one embodiment, generating the training feature vectors mayinclude formatting a set of n pixels extracted from the character imagesinto n-dimensional vectors.

In at least one embodiment, the method may further include performing aprincipal component analysis on the training feature vectors. Using atleast some of the training feature vectors to train the classificationmodel may include selecting a subset of the training feature orthogonalbasis vectors, and using the subset of the orthogonal basis vectors totrain the character recognition and classification model.

In at least one embodiment, the orthogonal basis vectors may span theoverall training feature vector space. Reducing a dimensionality of theoverall training feature vector space may include selecting a limitednumber of the orthogonal basis vectors which represent the said trainingfeature vector space sufficiently accurately. Reducing thedimensionality of the overall training vector space may includeselecting only orthogonal basis vectors that correspond to a set oflargest singular values derived from a matrix of the orthogonal basisvectors. Storing the classification model may include storing a limitednumber of the orthogonal basis vectors for subsequent use inclassification model generation and/or query processing. Generating theclassification model may include using a limited number of the trainingset orthogonal basis vectors in conjunction with a machine learningalgorithm selected from the group consisting of SVM and CNN.

In at least one embodiment, the method may further include processingthe one or more information card images to extract text, interpretingthe text to obtain metadata, and storing the metadata in associationwith the portion of the video stream. The method further includesplaying the portion of the video stream for a user, and presenting themetadata to the user during playback of the portion of the video stream.The video stream may be a broadcast of a sporting event. The portion ofthe video stream may include a highlight deemed to be of particularinterest to one or more users. The metadata may be descriptive of thehighlight.

In at least one embodiment, extracting the text may include extractingtext strings of the text as queries.

In at least one embodiment, extracting the text may include extractingat least one of a current time within the sporting event, a currentphase of the sporting event, a game clock pertaining to the sportingevent, and a game score pertaining to the sporting event.

Further details and variations are described herein.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, together with the description, illustrateseveral embodiments. One skilled in the art will recognize that theparticular embodiments illustrated in the drawings are merely exemplary,and are not intended to limit scope.

FIG. 1A is a block diagram depicting a hardware architecture accordingto a client/server embodiment, wherein event content is provided via anetwork-connected content provider.

FIG. 1B is a block diagram depicting a hardware architecture accordingto another client/server embodiment, wherein event content is stored ata client-based storage device.

FIG. 1C is a block diagram depicting a hardware architecture accordingto a standalone embodiment.

FIG. 1D is a block diagram depicting an overview of a systemarchitecture, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram depicting examples of datastructures that may be incorporated into the card images, user data,highlight data, and classification model, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a screenshot diagram of an example of a video frame from avideo stream, showing in-frame embedded information card images as maybe found in sporting event television programming contents.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart depicting an overall application process forreal-time receiving and processing of television programming content forin-frame information card localization and content extraction andrendering, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart depicting internal processing of a detected andextracted information card image for character string bounding boxextraction, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart depicting a method for processing text boxes forfinal bounded character images validation and associated positionalparameters extraction, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart depicting a method for query generation fromembedded information card text images, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart depicting a method for generating predictedalphanumeric characters for extracted query character strings based on amachine-learned classification model, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart depicting a method for predicted queryalphanumeric string interpretation, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart depicting preprocessing of training set vectorsand subsequent classification model generation based on a multi-classSVM classifier or a CNN classifier, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart depicting an overall process of reading andinterpreting text fields in information cards, and updating videohighlight metadata with in-frame real-time information, according to oneembodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Definitions

The following definitions are presented for explanatory purposes only,and are not intended to limit scope.

-   -   Event: For purposes of the discussion herein, the term “event”        refers to a game, session, match, series, performance, program,        concert, and/or the like, or portion thereof (such as an act,        period, quarter, half, inning, scene, chapter, or the like). An        event may be a sporting event, entertainment event, a specific        performance of a single individual or subset of individuals        within a larger population of participants in an event, or the        like. Examples of non-sporting events include television shows,        breaking news, socio-political incidents, natural disasters,        movies, plays, radio shows, podcasts, audiobooks, online        content, musical performances, and/or the like. An event can be        of any length. For illustrative purposes, the technology is        often described herein in terms of sporting events; however, one        skilled in the art will recognize that the technology can be        used in other contexts as well, including highlight shows for        any audiovisual, audio, visual, graphics-based, interactive,        non-interactive, or text-based content. Thus, the use of the        term “sporting event” and any other sports-specific terminology        in the description is intended to be illustrative of one        possible embodiment, but is not intended to restrict the scope        of the described technology to that one embodiment. Rather, such        terminology should be considered to extend to any suitable        non-sporting context as appropriate to the technology. For ease        of description, the term “event” is also used to refer to an        account or representation of an event, such as an audiovisual        recording of an event, or any other content item that includes        an accounting, description, or depiction of an event.    -   Highlight: An excerpt or portion of an event, or of content        associated with an event, that is deemed to be of particular        interest to one or more users. A highlight can be of any length.        In general, the techniques described herein provide mechanisms        for identifying and presenting a set of customized highlights        (which may be selected based on particular characteristics        and/or preferences of the user) for any suitable event.        “Highlight” can also be used to refer to an account or        representation of a highlight, such as an audiovisual recording        of a highlight, or any other content item that includes an        accounting, description, or depiction of a highlight. Highlights        need not be limited to depictions of events themselves, but can        include other content associated with an event. For example, for        a sporting event, highlights can include in-game audio/video, as        well as other content such as pre-game, in-game, and post-game        interviews, analysis, commentary, and/or the like. Such content        can be recorded from linear television (for example, as part of        the video stream depicting the event itself), or retrieved from        any number of other sources. Different types of highlights can        be provided, including for example, occurrences (plays),        strings, possessions, and sequences, all of which are defined        below. Highlights need not be of fixed duration, but may        incorporate a start offset and/or end offset, as described        below.    -   Content Delineator: One or more video frames that indicate the        start or end of a highlight.    -   Occurrence: Something that takes place during an event. Examples        include: a goal, a play, a down, a hit, a save, a shot on goal,        a basket, a steal, a snap or attempted snap, a near-miss, a        fight, a beginning or end of a game, quarter, half, period, or        inning, a pitch, a penalty, an injury, a dramatic incident in an        entertainment event, a song, a solo, and/or the like.        Occurrences can also be unusual, such as a power outage, an        incident with an unruly fan, and/or the like. Detection of such        occurrences can be used as a basis for determining whether or        not to designate a particular portion of a video stream as a        highlight. Occurrences are also referred to herein as “plays”,        for ease of nomenclature, although such usage should not be        construed to limit scope. Occurrences may be of any length, and        the representation of an occurrence may be of varying length.        For example, as mentioned above, an extended representation of        an occurrence may include footage depicting the period of time        just before and just after the occurrence, while a brief        representation may include just the occurrence itself. Any        intermediate representation can also be provided. In at least        one embodiment, the selection of a duration for a representation        of an occurrence can depend on user preferences, available time,        determined level of excitement for the occurrence, importance of        the occurrence, and/or any other factors.    -   Offset: The amount by which a highlight length is adjusted. In        at least one embodiment, a start offset and/or end offset can be        provided, for adjusting start and/or end times of the highlight,        respectively. For example, if a highlight depicts a goal, the        highlight may be extended (via an end offset) for a few seconds        so as to include celebrations and/or fan reactions following the        goal. Offsets can be configured to vary automatically or        manually, based for example on amount of time available for the        highlight, importance and/or excitement level of the highlight,        and/or any other suitable factors.    -   String: A series of occurrences that are somehow linked or        related to one another. The occurrences may take place within a        possession (defined below), or may span multiple possessions.        The occurrences may take place within a sequence (defined        below), or may span multiple sequences. The occurrences can be        linked or related because of some thematic or narrative        connection to one another, or because one leads to another, or        for any other reason. One example of a string is a set of passes        that lead to a goal or basket. This is not to be confused with a        “text string,” which has the meaning ordinarily ascribed to it        in the computer programming arts.    -   Possession: Any time-delimited portion of an event. Demarcation        of start/end times of a possession can depend on the type of        event. For certain sporting events wherein one team may be on        the offensive while the other team is on the defensive (such as        basketball or football, for example), a possession can be        defined as a time period while one of the teams has the ball. In        sports such as hockey or soccer, where puck or ball possession        is more fluid, a possession can be considered to extend to a        period of time wherein one of the teams has substantial control        of the puck or ball, ignoring momentary contact by the other        team (such as blocked shots or saves). For baseball, a        possession is defined as a half-inning. For football, a        possession can include a number of sequences in which the same        team has the ball. For other types of sporting events as well as        for non-sporting events, the term “possession” may be somewhat        of a misnomer, but is still used herein for illustrative        purposes. Examples in a non-sporting context may include a        chapter, scene, act, television segment, or the like. For        example, in the context of a music concert, a possession may        equate to performance of a single song. A possession can include        any number of occurrences.    -   Sequence: A time-delimited portion of an event that includes one        continuous time period of action. For example, in a sporting        event, a sequence may begin when action begins (such as a        face-off, tipoff, or the like), and may end when the whistle is        blown to signify a break in the action. In a sport such as        baseball or football, a sequence may be equivalent to a play,        which is a form of occurrence. A sequence can include any number        of possessions, or may be a portion of a possession.    -   Highlight show: A set of highlights that are arranged for        presentation to a user. The highlight show may be presented        linearly (such as a video stream), or in a manner that allows        the user to select which highlight to view and in which order        (for example by clicking on links or thumbnails). Presentation        of highlight show can be non-interactive or interactive, for        example allowing a user to pause, rewind, skip, fast-forward,        communicate a preference for or against, and/or the like. A        highlight show can be, for example, a condensed game. A        highlight show can include any number of contiguous or        non-contiguous highlights, from a single event or from multiple        events, and can even include highlights from different types of        events (e.g. different sports, and/or a combination of        highlights from sporting and non-sporting events).    -   User/viewer: The terms “user” or “viewer” interchangeably refer        to an individual, group, or other entity that is watching,        listening to, or otherwise experiencing an event, one or more        highlights of an event, or a highlight show. The terms “user” or        “viewer” can also refer to an individual, group, or other entity        that may at some future time watch, listen to, or otherwise        experience either an event, one or more highlights of an event,        or a highlight show. The term “viewer” may be used for        descriptive purposes, although the event need not have a visual        component, so that the “viewer” may instead be a listener or any        other consumer of content.    -   Narrative: A coherent story that links a set of highlight        segments in a particular order.    -   Excitement level: A measure of how exciting or interesting an        event or highlight is expected to be for a particular user or        for users in general. Excitement levels can also be determined        with respect to a particular occurrence or player. Various        techniques for measuring or assessing excitement level are        discussed in the above-referenced related applications. As        discussed, excitement level can depend on occurrences within the        event, as well as other factors such as overall context or        importance of the event (playoff game, pennant implications,        rivalries, and/or the like). In at least one embodiment, an        excitement level can be associated with each occurrence, string,        possession, or sequence within an event. For example, an        excitement level for a possession can be determined based on        occurrences that take place within that possession. Excitement        level may be measured differently for different users (e.g. a        fan of one team vs. a neutral fan), and it can depend on        personal characteristics of each user.    -   Metadata: Data pertaining to and stored in association with        other data. The primary data may be media such as a sports        program or highlight.    -   Card Image: An image in a video frame that provides data        regarding anything depicted in the video, such as an event, a        depiction of an event, or a portion thereof. Exemplary card        images contain game scores, game clocks, and/or other statistics        from sporting events. Card images may appear temporarily or for        the full duration of a video stream; those that appear        temporarily may pertain particularly to the portion of a video        stream in which they appear.    -   Character Image: A portion of an image that is believed to        pertain to a single character. The character image may include        the region surrounding the character. For example, a character        image may include a generally rectangular bounding box        surrounding a character.    -   Character: A symbol that can be part of a word, number, or        representation of a word or number. Characters can include        letters, numbers, and special characters, and may be in any        language.    -   Character String: A set of characters that is grouped together        in a manner indicating that they pertain to a single piece of        information, such as the name of the team playing in a sporting        event. An English language character string will often be        arranged horizontally and read left-to-right. However, character        strings may be arranged differently in English and in other        languages.

Overview

According to various embodiments, methods and systems are provided forautomatically creating time-based metadata associated with highlights oftelevision programming of a sporting event. The highlights andassociated in-frame time-based information may be extractedsynchronously with respect to the television broadcast of a sportingevent, or while the sporting event video content is being streamed via avideo server from a backup device after the television broadcast of asporting event.

In at least one embodiment, a software application operatessynchronously with playback and/or receipt of the television programmingcontent to provide information metadata associated with contenthighlights. Such software can run, for example, on the television deviceitself, or on an associated set-top box (STB), or on a video server withthe capability of receiving and subsequently streaming programmingcontent, or on a mobile device equipped with the capability of receivinga video feed including live programming. In at least one embodiment, thehighlights and associated metadata application operate synchronouslywith television programming content presentation.

Interactive television applications can enable timely, relevantpresentation of highlighted television programming content to users whoare watching television programming either on a primary televisiondisplay, or on a secondary display such as a tablet, laptop, orsmartphone. A set of video clips representing television broadcastcontent highlights may be generated and/or stored in real-time, alongwith a database containing time-based metadata describing in more detailthe events presented by highlight video clips.

The metadata accompanying video clips can be any information such astextual information, a set of images, and/or any type of audiovisualdata. One type of metadata associated with in-game and post-game videocontent highlights carries real-time information about sporting gameparameters extracted directly from live programming content by readinginformation cards (“card images”) embedded in one or more of videoframes of the programming content. In at least one embodiment, thedescribed system and method enable this type of automatic metadatageneration, thus associating the card image content with videohighlights of the analyzed digital video stream.

In various embodiments, an automated process is described, including:receiving a digital video stream, analyzing one or more video frames ofthe digital video stream for the presence and extraction of card images,localizing text boxes within the card images, and recognizing andinterpreting strings of characters residing within the text boxes.

The automated metadata generation video system presented herein mayreceive a live broadcast video stream or a digital video streamed via acomputer server, and may process the video stream in real-time usingcomputer vision and machine learning techniques to extract metadata fromembedded information cards.

In at least one embodiment, character strings associated with theextracted information card text fields are identified, and the locationand size of the image of each character in the string of characters arerecorded. Subsequently, any number of characters in text strings fromvarious fields of the information card are recognized and text stringswith recognized characters are interpreted, providing real-timeinformation related to the sporting event television programming, suchas current time and phase of the game, game score, play information,and/or the like.

In another embodiment, individual character images are extracted fromembedded character strings, and subsequently used to generate normalizedquery vectors. These normalized query vectors are then projected ontothe orthogonal basis spanning the training vector space, said trainingvectors previously assembled and used to train a machine learningclassifier such as, for example, a multi-class support vector machine(SVM) classifier (e.g. C. BURGES, “A Tutorial on Support Vector Machinesfor Pattern Recognition”, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998). Projectedqueries are subsequently used to generate query predictions as an outputof a pre-trained classification model produced by exemplary SVM trainingmechanisms. It should be noted that classification models are notlimited to the SVM-based models. Classification models may be alsoproduced using other techniques, such as convolutional neural networks(CNNs), and with a multitude of variations in CNN algorithmic mechanisms(e.g. Y. LeCun at al., “Efficient NN Back Propagation”, Springer 1998)suitable to the training data set presented herein.

In yet another embodiment, query character predictions are generated byapplying projected query character vectors against a previouslydeveloped, machine learned classification model. In this step, a stringof predicted characters is generated in accordance with previouslyestablished classification labels, and the predicted strings ofalphanumeric characters are passed to a recognition and interpretationprocess. The query recognition and interpretation process appliesprevious knowledge and positional understanding of characters residingin a multitude of information card fields. The meaning of each predictedalphanumeric character, positioned in a particular group of characters,is further interpreted, and the derived information is appended to thevideo highlight metadata handled by the video highlight generationapplication.

In yet another embodiment, a character classification model generationis considered, wherein the model is based on a training set ofcharacters extracted from any number of information cards embedded insporting event television programming content. Character bounding boxesare detected, and characters are extracted from a multitude ofinformation cards. These character images are subsequently normalized toa standardized size and illumination, to form a descriptor associatedwith each particular character from a set of alphanumeric charactersappearing in embedded information cards. In this manner, each extractedcharacter image represents an n-dimensional vector in a multidimensionalvector space containing the training set of vectors. The n-dimensionaltraining vectors, representing the set of character images, are furtherprocessed to increase uniqueness and mutual metric distance, as well asto reduce the dimensionality of the overall vector space of trainingvectors.

In at least one embodiment, a principal component analysis (e.g. G.Golub and F. Loan, “Matrix Computations”, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press,Baltimore, 1989) is performed on the training vector set. Thus, anorthogonal basis of vectors is devised from the training set, such thatthe orthogonal basis vectors span the training set vector space. Inaddition, the dimensionality of the training set vector space is reducedby selecting a limited number of orthogonal basis vectors such that onlythe most important orthogonal vectors, associated with the largest setof singular values, generated by singular value decomposition of thetraining set matrix of basis vectors, are retained. Subsequently, theselected training set basis vectors are saved for later use inclassification model generation with one or more of availablealgorithmic structures for data set classification, such as amulti-class SVM-based classifier, or a CNN-based classifier.

System Architecture

According to various embodiments, the system can be implemented on anyelectronic device, or set of electronic devices, equipped to receive,store, and present information. Such an electronic device may be, forexample, a desktop computer, laptop computer, television, smartphone,tablet, music player, audio device, kiosk, set-top box (STB), gamesystem, wearable device, consumer electronic device, and/or the like.

Although the system is described herein in connection with animplementation in particular types of computing devices, one skilled inthe art will recognize that the techniques described herein can beimplemented in other contexts, and indeed in any suitable device capableof receiving and/or processing user input, and presenting output to theuser. Accordingly, the following description is intended to illustratevarious embodiments by way of example, rather than to limit scope.

Referring now to FIG. 1A, there is shown a block diagram depictinghardware architecture of a system 100 for automatically extractingmetadata from card images embedded in a video stream of an event,according to a client/server embodiment. Event content, such as thevideo stream, may be provided via a network-connected content provider124. An example of such a client/server embodiment is a web-basedimplementation, wherein each of one or more client devices 106 runs abrowser or app that provides a user interface for interacting withcontent from various servers 102, 114, 116, including data provider(s)servers 122, and/or content provider(s) servers 124, via communicationsnetwork 104. Transmission of content and/or data in response to requestsfrom client device 106 can take place using any known protocols andlanguages, such as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Java, Objective C,Python, JavaScript, and/or the like.

Client device 106 can be any electronic device, such as a desktopcomputer, laptop computer, television, smartphone, tablet, music player,audio device, kiosk, set-top box, game system, wearable device, consumerelectronic device, and/or the like. In at least one embodiment, clientdevice 106 has a number of hardware components well known to thoseskilled in the art. Input device(s) 151 can be any component(s) thatreceive input from user 150, including, for example, a handheld remotecontrol, keyboard, mouse, stylus, touch-sensitive screen (touchscreen),touchpad, gesture receptor, trackball, accelerometer, five-way switch,microphone, or the like. Input can be provided via any suitable mode,including for example, one or more of: pointing, tapping, typing,dragging, gesturing, tilting, shaking, and/or speech. Display screen 152can be any component that graphically displays information, video,content, and/or the like, including depictions of events, highlights,and/or the like. Such output may also include, for example, audiovisualcontent, data visualizations, navigational elements, graphical elements,queries requesting information and/or parameters for selection ofcontent, or the like. In at least one embodiment, where only some of thedesired output is presented at a time, a dynamic control, such as ascrolling mechanism, may be available via input device(s) 151 to choosewhich information is currently displayed, and/or to alter the manner inwhich the information is displayed.

Processor 157 can be a conventional microprocessor for performingoperations on data under the direction of software, according towell-known techniques. Memory 156 can be random-access memory, having astructure and architecture as are known in the art, for use by processor157 in the course of running software for performing the operationsdescribed herein. Client device 106 can also include local storage (notshown), which may be a hard drive, flash drive, optical or magneticstorage device, web-based (cloud-based) storage, and/or the like.

Any suitable type of communications network 104, such as the Internet, atelevision network, a cable network, a cellular network, and/or the likecan be used as the mechanism for transmitting data between client device106 and various server(s) 102, 114, 116 and/or content provider(s) 124and/or data provider(s) 122, according to any suitable protocols andtechniques. In addition to the Internet, other examples include cellulartelephone networks, EDGE, 3G, 4G, long term evolution (LTE), SessionInitiation Protocol (SIP), Short Message Peer-to-Peer protocol (SMPP),SS7, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP),Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol (SHTTP), Transmission ControlProtocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), and/or the like, and/or anycombination thereof. In at least one embodiment, client device 106transmits requests for data and/or content via communications network104, and receives responses from server(s) 102, 114, 116 containing therequested data and/or content.

In at least one embodiment, the system of FIG. 1A operates in connectionwith sporting events; however, the teachings herein apply tonon-sporting events as well, and it is to be appreciated that thetechnology described herein is not limited to application to sportingevents. For example, the technology described herein can be utilized tooperate in connection with a television show, movie, news event, gameshow, political action, business show, drama, and/or other episodiccontent, or for more than one such event.

In at least one embodiment, system 100 identifies highlights ofbroadcast events by analyzing a video stream of the event. This analysismay be carried out in real-time. In at least one embodiment, system 100includes one or more web server(s) 102 coupled via a communicationsnetwork 104 to one or more client devices 106. Communications network104 may be a public network, a private network, or a combination ofpublic and private networks such as the Internet. Communications network104 can be a LAN, WAN, wired, wireless and/or combination of the above.Client device 106 is, in at least one embodiment, capable of connectingto communications network 104, either via a wired or wirelessconnection. In at least one embodiment, client device may also include arecording device capable of receiving and recording events, such as aDVR, PVR, or other media recording device. Such recording device can bepart of client device 106, or can be external; in other embodiments,such recording device can be omitted. Although FIG. 1A shows one clientdevice 106, system 100 can be implemented with any number of clientdevice(s) 106 of a single type or multiple types.

Web server(s) 102 may include one or more physical computing devicesand/or software that can receive requests from client device(s) 106 andrespond to those requests with data, as well as send out unsolicitedalerts and other messages. Web server(s) 102 may employ variousstrategies for fault tolerance and scalability such as load balancing,caching and clustering. In at least one embodiment, web server(s) 102may include caching technology, as known in the art, for storing clientrequests and information related to events.

Web server(s) 102 may maintain, or otherwise designate, one or moreapplication server(s) 114 to respond to requests received from clientdevice(s) 106. In at least one embodiment, application server(s) 114provide access to business logic for use by client application programsin client device(s) 106. Application server(s) 114 may be co-located,co-owned, or co-managed with web server(s) 102. Application server(s)114 may also be remote from web server(s) 102. In at least oneembodiment, application server(s) 114 interact with one or moreanalytical server(s) 116 and one or more data server(s) 118 to performone or more operations of the disclosed technology.

One or more storage devices 153 may act as a “data store” by storingdata pertinent to operation of system 100. This data may include, forexample, and not by way of limitation, card data 154 pertinent to cardimages embedded in video streams presenting events such as sportingevents, user data 155 pertinent to one or more users 150, highlight data164 pertinent to one or more highlights of the events, and/or aclassification model 165, which may be used to predict and/or extracttext from card data 154.

Card data 154 can include any information related to card imagesembedded in the video stream, such as the card images themselves,subsets thereof such as character images, text extracted from the cardimages such as characters and character strings, and attributes of anyof the foregoing that can be helpful in text and/or meaning extraction.User data 155 can include any information describing one or more users150, including for example, demographics, purchasing behavior, videostream viewing behavior, interests, preferences, and/or the like.Highlight data 164 may include highlights, highlight identifiers, timeindicators, categories, excitement levels, and other data pertaining tohighlights. Classification model 165 may include machine trainedclassification model, queries, query feature vectors, training setorthogonal bases, predicted queries, extracted text meaning, and/orother information that facilitates extraction of text and/or meaningfrom card data 154. Card data 154, user data 155, highlight data 164,and classification model 165 will be described in detail subsequently.

Notably, many components of system 100 may be, or may include, computingdevices. Such computing devices may each have an architecture similar tothat of the client device 106, as shown and described above. Thus, anyof communications network 104, web servers 102, application servers 114,analytical servers 116, data providers 122, content providers 124, dataservers 118, and storage devices 153 may include one or more computingdevices, each of which may optionally have an input device 151, displayscreen 152, memory 156, and/or a processor 157, as described above inconnection with client devices 106.

In an exemplary operation of system 100, one or more users 150 of clientdevices 106 view content from content providers 124, in the form ofvideo streams. The video streams may show events, such as sportingevents. The video streams may be digital video streams that can readilybe processed with known computer vision techniques.

As the video streams are displayed, one or more components of system100, such as client devices 106, web servers 102, application servers114, and/or analytical servers 116, may analyze the video streams,identify highlights within the video streams, and/or extract metadatafrom the video stream, for example, from embedded card images and/orother aspects of the video stream. This analysis may be carried out inresponse to receipt of a request to identify highlights and/or metadatafor the video stream. Alternatively, in another embodiment, highlightsmay be identified without a specific request having been made by user150. In yet another embodiment, the analysis of video streams can takeplace without a video stream being displayed.

In at least one embodiment, user 150 can specify, via input device(s)151 at client device 106, certain parameters for analysis of the videostream (such as, for example, what event/games/teams to include, howmuch time user 150 has available to view the highlights, what metadatais desired, and/or any other parameters). User preferences can also beextracted from storage, such as from user data 155 stored in one or morestorage devices 153, so as to customize analysis of the video streamwithout necessarily requiring user 150 to specify preferences. In atleast one embodiment, user preferences can be determined based onobserved behavior and actions of user 150, for example, by observingwebsite visitation patterns, television watching patterns, musiclistening patterns, online purchases, previous highlight identificationparameters, highlights and/or metadata actually viewed by user 150,and/or the like.

Additionally or alternatively, user preferences can be retrieved frompreviously stored preferences that were explicitly provided by user 150.Such user preferences may indicate which teams, sports, players, and/ortypes of events are of interest to user 150, and/or they may indicatewhat type of metadata or other information related to highlights, wouldbe of interest to user 150. Such preferences can therefore be used toguide analysis of the video stream to identify highlights and/or extractmetadata for the highlights.

Analytical server(s) 116, which may include one or more computingdevices as described above, may analyze live and/or recorded feeds ofplay-by-play statistics related to one or more events from dataprovider(s) 122. Examples of data provider(s) 122 may include, but arenot limited to, providers of real-time sports information such asSTATS™, Perform (available from Opta Sports of London, UK), andSportRadar of St. Gallen, Switzerland. In at least one embodiment,analytical server(s) 116 generate different sets of excitement levelsfor events; such excitement levels can then be stored in conjunctionwith highlights identified by system 100 according to the techniquesdescribed herein.

Application server(s) 114 may analyze the video stream to identify thehighlights and/or extract the metadata. Additionally or alternatively,such analysis may be carried out by client device(s) 106. The identifiedhighlights and/or extracted metadata may be specific to a user 150; insuch case, it may be advantageous to identify the highlights in clientdevice 106 pertaining to a particular user 150. Client device 106 mayreceive, retain, and/or retrieve the applicable user preferences forhighlight identification and/or metadata extraction, as described above.Additionally or alternatively, highlight generation and/or metadataextraction may carried out globally (i.e., using objective criteriaapplicable to the user population in general, without regard topreferences for a particular user 150). In such a case, it may beadvantageous to identify the highlights and/or extract the metadata inapplication server(s) 114.

Content that facilitates highlight identification and/or metadataextraction may come from any suitable source, including from contentprovider(s) 124, which may include websites such as YouTube, MLB.com,and the like; sports data providers; television stations; client- orserver-based DVRs; and/or the like. Alternatively, content can come froma local source such as a DVR or other recording device associated with(or built into) client device 106. In at least one embodiment,application server(s) 114 generate a customized highlight show, withhighlights and metadata, available to user 150, either as a download, orstreaming content, or on-demand content, or in some other manner.

As mentioned above, it may be advantageous for user-specific highlightidentification and/or metadata extraction to be carried out at aparticular client device 106 associated with a particular user 150. Suchan embodiment may avoid the need for video content or otherhigh-bandwidth content to be transmitted via communications network 104unnecessarily, particularly if such content is already available atclient device 106.

For example, referring now to FIG. 1B, there is shown an example of asystem 160 according to an embodiment wherein at least some of the carddata 154, highlight data 164, and classification model 165 are stored atclient-based storage device 158, which may be any form of local storagedevice available to client device 106. An example is a DVR on whichevents may be recorded, such as for example video content for a completesporting event. Alternatively, client-based storage device 158 can beany magnetic, optical, or electronic storage device for data in digitalform; examples include flash memory, magnetic hard drive, CD-ROM,DVD-ROM, or other device integrated with client device 106 orcommunicatively coupled with client device 106. Based on the informationprovided by application server(s) 114, client device 106 may extractmetadata from card data 154 stored at client-based storage device 158and store the metadata as highlight data 164 without having to retrieveother content from a content provider 124 or other remote source. Suchan arrangement can save bandwidth, and can usefully leverage existinghardware that may already be available to client device 106.

Returning to FIG. 1A, in at least one embodiment, application server(s)114 may identify different highlights and/or extract different metadatafor different users 150, depending on individual user preferences and/orother parameters. The identified highlights and/or extracted metadatamay be presented to user 150 via any suitable output device, such asdisplay screen 152 at client device 106. If desired, multiple highlightsmay be identified and compiled into a highlight show, along withassociated metadata. Such a highlight show may be accessed via a menu,and/or assembled into a “highlight reel,” or set of highlights, thatplays for the user 150 according to a predetermined sequence. User 150can, in at least one embodiment, control highlight playback and/ordelivery of the associated metadata via input device(s) 151, for exampleto:

-   -   select particular highlights and/or metadata for display;    -   pause, rewind, fast-forward;    -   skip forward to the next highlight;    -   return to the beginning of a previous highlight within the        highlight show; and/or    -   perform other actions.

Additional details on such functionality are provided in the above-citedrelated U.S. Patent Applications.

In at least one embodiment, one more data server(s) 118 are provided.Data server(s) 118 may respond to requests for data from any ofserver(s) 102, 114, 116, for example to obtain or provide card data 154,user data 155, highlight data 164, and/or the classification model 165.In at least one embodiment, such information can be stored at anysuitable storage device 153 accessible by data server 118, and can comefrom any suitable source, such as from client device 106 itself, contentprovider(s) 124, data provider(s) 122, and/or the like.

Referring now to FIG. 1C, there is shown a system 180 according to analternative embodiment wherein system 180 is implemented in astand-alone environment. As with the embodiment shown in FIG. 1B, atleast some of the card data 154, user data 155, highlight data 164, andclassification model 165 may be stored at a client-based storage device158, such as a DVR or the like. Alternatively, client-based storagedevice 158 can be flash memory or a hard drive, or other deviceintegrated with client device 106 or communicatively coupled with clientdevice 106.

User data 155 may include preferences and interests of user 150. Basedon such user data 155, system 180 may extract metadata within card data154 to present to user 150 in the manner described herein. Additionallyor alternatively, metadata may be extracted based on objective criteriathat are not based on information specific to user 150.

Referring now to FIG. 1D, there is shown an overview of a system 190with architecture according to an alternative embodiment. In FIG. 1D,the system 190 includes a broadcast service such as content provider(s)124, a content receiver in the form of client device 106 such as atelevision set with a STB, a video server such as analytical server(s)116 capable of ingesting and streaming television programming content,and/or other client devices 106 such as a mobile device and a laptop,which are capable of receiving and processing television programmingcontent, all connected via a network such as communications network 104.A client-based storage device 158, such as a DVR, may be connected toany of client devices 106 and/or other components, and may store a videostream, highlights, highlight identifiers, and/or metadata to facilitateidentification and presentation of highlights and/or extracted metadatavia any of client devices 106.

The specific hardware architectures depicted in FIGS. 1A, 1B, 1C, and 1Dare merely exemplary. One skilled in the art will recognize that thetechniques described herein can be implemented using otherarchitectures. Many components depicted therein are optional and may beomitted, consolidated with other components, and/or replaced with othercomponents.

In at least one embodiment, the system can be implemented as softwarewritten in any suitable computer programming language, whether in astandalone or client/server architecture. Alternatively, it may beimplemented and/or embedded in hardware.

Data Structures

FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram depicting examples of datastructures that may be incorporated into card data 154, user data 155,highlight data 164, and classification model 165, according to oneembodiment.

As shown, card data 154 may include a record for each of a plurality ofcard images embedded in one or more video streams. Each of the cardimages may contain one or more character strings 200. Each of thecharacter strings 200 may have records for n characters. Each suchrecord may have a character image 202, a processed character image 203,character boundaries 204, a size 205, a location 206, a contrast ratio207, and/or an interpretation 208. Each of the character strings 200 mayfurther have a string length 209, indicating the length of the characterstring 200 (for example, in characters, pixels, or the like).

Character image 202 may be the particular portion of the card image thatcontains a single character. Processed character image 203 may becharacter image 202 after application of one or more processing steps,such as normalization for size, brightness, and/or the like.

Character boundaries 204 may indicate the boundaries of character image202, processed character image 203, and/or the character represented incharacter image 202 and processed character image 203.

Size 205 may be the size of character image 202, processed characterimage 203, and/or the character represented in character image 202 andprocessed character image 203, for example, in pixels.

Location 206 may be the position of character image 202, processedcharacter image 203, and/or the character represented in character image202 and processed character image 203 within the card image. In someexamples, location 206 may indicate position in two dimensions (forexample, x and y coordinates of a corner or center of character image202, processed character image 203, and/or the character represented incharacter image 202 and processed character image 203).

Contrast ratio 207 may be an indicator of contrast of character image202, processed character image 203, and/or the character represented incharacter image 202 and processed character image 203. In some examples,contrast ratio 207 may be the ratio of luminance values of one or morebrightest pixels, to that of one or more darkest pixels, withincharacter image 202, processed character image 203, and/or the characterrepresented in character image 202 and processed character image 203.

Interpretation 208 may be the specific character, for example, a, b, c,1, 2, 3, #, &, etc., believed to be represented in character image 202after some analysis has been performed to interpret character string200.

The structure of card data 154 set forth in FIG. 2 is merely exemplary;in some embodiments, data pertinent to card images embedded in a videostream may be organized differently. For example, in other embodiments,each character string may not necessarily be broken down into individualcharacter images. Rather, character strings may be interpreted as awhole, and data useful to interpretation of the character string may bestored for the entire character string. Further, in alternativeembodiments, data not specifically described above may be incorporatedinto card data 154. The structures of user data 155, highlight data 164,and classification model 165 of FIG. 2 are likewise merely exemplary;many alternatives may be envisioned by a person of skill in the art.

As further shown, user data 155 may include records pertaining to users150, each of which may include demographic data 212, preferences 214,viewing history 216, and purchase history 218 for a particular user 150.

Demographic data 212 may include any type of demographic data, includingbut not limited to age, gender, location, nationality, religiousaffiliation, education level, and/or the like.

Preferences 214 may include selections made by user 150 regarding his orher preferences. Preferences 214 may relate directly to highlight andmetadata gathering and/or viewing, or may be more general in nature. Ineither case, preferences 214 may be used to facilitate identificationand/or presentation of the highlights and metadata to user 150.

Viewing history 216 may list the television programs, video streams,highlights, web pages, search queries, sporting events, and/or othercontent retrieved and/or viewed by the user 150.

Purchase history 218 may list products or services purchased orrequested by user 150.

As further shown, highlight data 164 may include records for jhighlights 220, each of which may include a video stream 222, anidentifier, and/or metadata 224 for a particular highlight 220.

Video stream 222 may include video depicting highlight 220, which may beobtained from one or more video streams of one or more events (forexample, by cropping the video stream to include only video stream 222pertaining to highlight 220). Identifier 223 may include time codesand/or other indicia that indicate where highlight 220 resides withinthe video stream of the event from which it is obtained.

In some embodiments, the record for each of highlights 220 may containonly one of video stream 222 and identifier 223. Highlight playback maybe carried out by playing video stream 222 for user 150, or by usingidentifier 223 to play only the highlighted portion of the video streamfor the event from which the highlight 220 is obtained.

Metadata 224 may include information about highlight 220, such as theevent date, season, and groups or individuals involved in the event orthe video stream from which highlight 220 was obtained, such as teams,players, coaches, anchors, broadcasters, and fans, and/or the like.Among other information, metadata 224 for each highlight 220 may includea time 225, phase 226, clock 227, score 228, and/or frame number 229.

Time 225 may be a time, within video stream 222, from which highlight220 is obtained, or within video stream 222 pertaining to highlight 220,at which metadata is available. In some examples, time 225 may be theplayback time, within video stream 222, pertaining to highlight 220, atwhich a card image is displayed containing metadata 224.

Phase 226 may be the phase of the event pertaining to highlight 220.More particularly, phase 226 may be the stage of a sporting event atwhich the card image is displayed containing metadata 224. For example,phase 226 may be “third quarter,” “second inning,” “bottom half,” or thelike.

Clock 227 may be the game clock pertaining to highlight 220. Moreparticularly, clock 227 may be state of the game clock at the time thecard image is displayed containing metadata 224. For example, clock 227may be “15:47” for a card image displayed with fifteen minutes andforty-seven seconds displayed on the game clock.

Score 228 may be the game score pertaining to highlight 220. Moreparticularly, score 228 may be the score when the card image isdisplayed containing metadata 224. For example, score 228 may be“45-38,” “7-0,” “30-love,” or the like.

Frame number 229 may be the number of the video frame, within the videostream from which highlight 220 is obtained, or video stream 222pertaining to highlight 220, that relates most directly to highlight220. More particularly, frame number 229 may be the number of such avideo frame at which the card image is displayed containing metadata224.

As shown further, classification model 165 may include a variety ofinformation that facilitates extraction and interpretation of characterstrings 200. This, in turn, may enable automated generation of metadata224 for highlights 220. Specifically, classification model 165 mayinclude queries 230, query feature vectors 232, orthogonal basis 234,predicted queries 236, and/or text meaning 238.

The operation of queries 230, query feature vectors 232, orthogonalbasis 234, and predicted queries 236 are set forth in greater detailherein. Text meaning 238 may be the interpretation of character strings200, rendered in a manner that can be easily copied into metadata 224.

The data structures set forth in FIG. 2 are merely exemplary. Those ofskill in the art will recognize that some of the data of FIG. 2 may beomitted or replaced with other data in the performance of highlightidentification and/or metadata extraction. Additionally oralternatively, data not shown in FIG. 2 may be used in the performanceof highlight identification and/or metadata extraction.

Card Images

Referring now to FIG. 3, there is shown a screenshot diagram of anexample of a video frame 300 from a video stream with embeddedinformation in the form of card images, as may frequently appear insporting event television programming. FIG. 3 depicts a card image 310in the lower right-hand side of video frame 300, and a second card image320 extending along the bottom of video frame 300. Card images 310, 320may contain embedded information such as the game phase, current clocks,and current scores.

In at least one embodiment, the information in card images 310, 320 islocalized and processed for automatic recognition and interpretation ofembedded text in card images 310, 320. The interpreted text may then beassembled into textual metadata describing the status of the sportinggame at particular point of time within the sporting event timeline.

Notably, card image 310 may pertain to the sporting event currentlybeing shown, while second card image 320 may contain information for adifferent sporting event. In some embodiments, only card imagescontaining information deemed to be pertinent to the currently playingsporting event is processed for metadata generation. Thus, withoutlimiting scope, the exemplary description below assumes that only cardimage 310 will be processed. However, in alternative embodiments, it maybe desirable to process multiple card images in a given video frame 300,even including card images pertaining to other sporting events.

As shown in FIG. 3, card image 310 can provide several different typesof metadata 224, including team names 330, scores 340, prior teamperformance 350, a current game stage 360, a game clock 370, a playstatus 380, and/or other information 390. Each of these may be extractedfrom within card image 310 and interpreted to provide metadata 224corresponding to highlight 220 containing video frame 300, and moreparticularly, to video frame 300 in which card image 310 is displayed.

Metadata Extraction

FIG. 4 is a flowchart depicting a method 400, according to oneembodiment, carried out by an application running, for example, on oneof client devices 106, and/or analytical servers 116, that receives avideo stream 222 and performs on-the-fly processing of video frames 300for extraction of metadata from card images such as 310. System 100 ofFIG. 1A will be referenced as the system carrying out method 400 andthose that follow; however, alternative systems, including but notlimited to system 160 of FIG. 1B, system 180 of FIG. 1C, and/or system190 of FIG. 1D, may be used in place of system 100 of FIG. 1A.

Method 400 of FIG. 4 depicts, in more detail, the process outlinedabove. A video stream, such as a video stream 222 corresponding to ahighlight 220 that has been previously identified, may be received anddecoded. In a step 410, one or more video frames 300 of video stream 222may be received, resized to standard sizes, and decoded. In a step 420,a video frame 300 may be processed to detect and, if applicable, extractone or more card images, such as card image 310 of FIG. 3, from videoframe 300. Pursuant to a query 430, if no valid card image 310 is foundin video frame 300, method 400 may return to step 410 to decode andanalyze a different video frame 300.

If a valid card image 310 has been found, then in a step 440, videoframe 300 may be further processed to localize, extract, and process adetected card image 310 and extract and process text boxes and/orstrings of characters embedded in card image 310. Pursuant to a query450, if no valid character string 200 is found in card image 310, method400 may return to step 410 to process a new video frame 300.

If a valid character string 200 is found in card image 310, method 400may proceed to a step 460, in which extracted character string(s) 200are recognized and interpreted, and corresponding metadata 224 isgenerated based on the interpretation of information from card image310. In various embodiments, the available choices for textinterpretation are based on determining the type of card image of cardimage 310 detected in video frame 300, and/or on advance knowledge ofdetected fields present within the particular type of card imageapplicable to card image 310 detected in video frame 300.

As indicated previously, detection, localization, and interpretation ofembedded text in card images present in television programming contentmay occur entirely locally on the TV, on a STB, or on a mobile device.Alternatively, it can occur remotely on a remote video server withbroadcast video ingestion and streaming capability. Alternatively, anycombination of local and remote processing can be used.

Information Card Character Strings Processing: Localization andExtraction

An “Extremal Region” (ER) is an image region whose outer boundary pixelshave strictly higher values than the region itself (e.g. L. Neumann, J.Matas, “Real-Time Scene Text Localization and Recognition”, 5th IEEEConference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, Providence, R.I.,June 2012). One of the well-known methods used for ER detection in animage uses a so-called maximally stable ER detector, or MSER detector.Additional detection methods allow for testing of a wider range of ERs,while maintaining relatively low computational complexity. When a widerrange of ERs are included in the test, a sequential classifier can beintroduced which is based on certain features pertinent to the characterregions. This classifier can be pre-trained to generate a probability ofthe presence of a character, which results in multiple probable detectedboundaries of a character (i.e., character boundaries 204). While in thefirst stage of ER classification, the probability of the presence of acharacter is estimated; in the second stage, ERs with locally maximalprobability are selected. The classification can be further improved byusing some more computationally expensive features. Furthermore, in atleast one embodiment, a repetitive exhaustive search is applied todetect combinations of characters and to group ERs into words. Suchmethods also allow for region edges to be included into theconsideration of ERs for improved character detection. The final outcomeis an ER selected with highest probability of representing characterboundaries 204.

Since the character detector described above generates several regionsfor the same character, the next step is to disambiguate the detectedregions. In at least one embodiment, this disambiguation involvesperforming multiple comparisons of detected character boundaries 204,and subsequently purging character boundaries 204, which may be in theform of character-bounding boxes, which appear too close to each other.As a result, only one character-bounding box is accepted within acertain perimeter, thus allowing for a correct formation of a characterstring 200 representing the appropriate text field of card image 310.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart depicting a method 500 for carrying out, in moredetail, the process outlined above. A video frame 300 is selected forprocessing, or an option is chosen to process each video frame 300 insuccession. In a step 510, card images 310 in video frames 300, if anyare detected, are extracted and resized to a standardized size. Next, ina step 520, the resized card images are pre-processed by a chain offilters, including for example: contrast increase, bilateral and medianfiltering for noise reduction, gamma correction, and/or illuminationcompensation.

In a step 530, an ER filter with 2-stage classifiers is created, and ina step 540, this cascade classifier is applied to each image channel ofcard image 310. Character groups are detected, and one or more groups ofword boxes are extracted for further processing. In a step 550,character strings 200 with individual character boundaries 204 areanalyzed for character boundary disambiguation. Finally, a cleancharacter string 200 is generated, with only one character acceptedwithin each of the perimeters of a location 206 of a character.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart depicting a method 600 of further processing forvalidation of character boundaries 204. Method 600 may commence withextraction of character strings 200, removal of duplicate characters,and final processing and acceptance of character strings 200, in a step610. As depicted, each character within the string of disambiguatedcharacters may be further processed for character image validation.

Thus, in a step 620, pixel count ratios may be obtained in low and highintensity regions of each character image 202 (or processed characterimage 203), for comparison with a predefined contrast ratio betweenlow-and high-intensity pixel counts. In step 620, for each characterimage 202 or processed character image 203, high- and low-intensitylevel pixels are grouped and counted.

Next, in a step 630, the ratio of these two counts is computed andsubjected to thresholding, such that only character images 202 orprocessed character images 203 with sufficiently high contrast ratiosare retained. Subsequently, in a step 640, positional bounding boxcoordinates (i.e., locations 206) for validated characters are recordedand saved for further use in interpretation of character strings 200.

In alternative embodiments, the character-bounding box validationdescribed above may precede the character boundary disambiguation, or itmay be used in combination with character boundary disambiguation forfinal character validation.

Information Card Processing for Query Extraction and Recognition

In at least one embodiment, an automated process is performed, includingthe steps of: receiving a digital video stream, such as video stream 222pertaining to a highlight 220; analyzing one or more video frames 300 ofthe digital video stream for the presence of a card image 310;extracting card image 310; localizing character boundaries 204 forcharacters of character strings 200 within card image 310; andextracting text residing within the text boxes to create a query stringof characters.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart depicting a method 700 of information card querygeneration according to one embodiment. In a step 710, card images 310are extracted from decoded video frames 300. In a step 720, card images310 are processed to identify and extract character strings 200 asdescribed above. In a step 730, character images 202 are extracted fromcard images 310 and normalized query images (for example, queries 230),are generated. In a step 740, a query infrastructure is populated withnormalized query character images (query feature vectors 232).

In another embodiment, query predictions are generated by firstprojecting query feature vectors onto a previously developed trainingset orthogonal basis (for example, orthogonal basis 234), and thenapplying the resulting projected query feature vectors to amachine-learned classification model, such as classification model 165.A string of predicted alphanumeric characters may be generated inaccordance with previously established classification labels, and thispredicted alphanumeric string may be passed to an interpretation processfor final extraction of text meaning 238.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart depicting a method 800 containing processing stepsfor query recognition, leading to query alphanumeric string generationand query interpretation and understanding. In a step 810, orthogonalbasis vectors of orthogonal basis 234 are loaded, spanning the trainingset vector space. In a step 820, normalized queries may be projectedonto orthogonal basis 234. In a step 830, classification model 165, aspreviously developed, may be loaded. Classification model 165 may beapplied to projected queries. Finally, in a step 840, a string ofpredicted alphanumeric characters may be generated, and subsequentlyused for interpretation and meaning extraction to yield text meaning238.

Query Interpretation and Meaning Extraction

In at least one embodiment, one or more character strings 200 residingwithin card image 310 are identified. Subsequent steps may includelocalization, size determination, and extraction of each character image202 in identified character strings 200. Detected and extractedcharacter images 202 are converted into query feature vectors 232 andprojected onto training set orthogonal basis 234. Subsequently, theprojected queries are applied against classification model 165, toproduce a string of predicted alphanumeric characters.

In at least one embodiment, the predicted query alphanumeric charactersare routed to an interpretation process that applies previous knowledgeand positional understanding of characters residing in a multitude ofcard images 310. Next, the meaning is derived for each predictedalphanumeric character positioned in a particular character string 200,and the extracted information is appended to metadata 224 stored inassociation with highlight 220.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart depicting, in more detail, a method 900 forpredicted query string interpretation according to one embodiment.Method 900 involves combining consideration of character string length,position and horizontal distance of character boxes, and alphanumericreadings for meaning extraction.

Method 900 starts with a step 910 in which a character count in eachprocessed query for a character string 200 is loaded, together with size205 and location 206 of the character within character string 200. Thevideo frame number and/or time, associated with extracted queries 230 tobe processed, may also be made available for a reference related to theabsolute time. In a step 920, string length 209, size 205 of thecharacters, and/or location 206 of the characters may be considered inthe analysis.

Next, in a step 930, system 100 may proceed through character string200, and character string 200 may be interpreted by applying knowledgeof field position of the characters, as well as the knowledge ofalphanumeric values of the characters. In step 930, knowledge andunderstanding of particular card image 310 may also be used tocompensate for possible missing front characters. Finally, in a step940, the derived meaning is recorded (for example, in text meaning 238),and corresponding metadata 224 are formed, providing real-timeinformation related to the current sporting event television programmingand the current timeline associated with processed embedded card images310.

Generation of Machine Learned Classification Model with Application toRecognition of Query Characters Extracted from Embedded InformationCards

In at least one embodiment, classification model generation is performedusing convolutional neural networks. In general, neural networks developtheir information categorization capabilities through a supervisedlearning process applied to a training set of character vectors, andwith a known (desired) classification outcome. During the trainingprocess, the neural network algorithmic structure adjusts its weightsand biases to perform accurate classification. One example of a knownarchitecture used for learning internal weights and biases of a neuralnetwork during the training process, is a back-propagation neuralnetwork architecture, or feed-forward back-propagation neural networkarchitecture. When such a network is presented with a set of trainingdata, the back-propagation algorithm computes the difference between theactual output and desired output, and feeds back the error to correctthe inner network weights and biases that are responsible for errorgeneration. At the classification/inference phase, a neural networkstructure is first loaded with pre-learned model parameters, weights,and biases, and then a query is fed forward through the network,resulting in one or more identified label(s) at the network outputrepresenting query prediction.

In another exemplary system for classification model generation, amulti-class SVM is used. Such SVM classification systems differradically from comparable approaches such as neural network learningsystems, which rely heavily on heuristics to construct various networkarchitectures, and with training processes that do not always end in aglobal minimum. In contrast, SVMs are mathematically very well defined,and with a training process that consistently finds a global minimum. Inaddition, with SVMs, there is a relatively simple and clear geometricinterpretation of the training process and classification goals, whichimprove on the intuitive insight into the process of classificationmodel generation. An SVM can be efficiently utilized for classificationof data sets that are not linearly separable, and can be extended tomulti-label classification tasks. The SVM for classification of datasets that are not linearly separable is characterized by the choice ofkernel functions, which help project the data set onto ahigh-dimensional vector space, where the original data sets becomelinearly separable. However, the choice of kernel functions isnon-trivial, and includes a degree of heuristics and data dependency.

In at least one embodiment, character classification model generation isbased on a training set of characters extracted from one or moreexemplary card images 310 embedded in sporting event televisionprogramming contents. Character boundaries 204 are detected andcharacters are extracted from a multitude of card images 310. Suchcharacter boundaries 204 contain small character images 202 that may besubsequently normalized to a standard size and illumination to provideprocessed character images 203. Feature vectors (or query featurevectors 232) are formed for character images 202 and/or processedcharacter images 203, and these feature vectors are then associated witheach particular character from a set of character images appearing inembedded card images 310.

In a structural approach to a character image feature formation, acharacter feature vector, or query feature vector 232, is associatedwith a set of n pixels extracted from a preprocessed character image202. These n pixels are formatted into an n-dimensional vector,representing a single point in the n-dimensional feature vector space oftraining vectors. The main goal of feature selection is to construct adecision boundary in feature space that correctly separates characterimages 202 of different classes. Hence, in at least one embodiment, theextracted set of character images 202, representing the trainingvectors, are further processed to increase uniqueness and mutual metricdistance of training vectors, as well as to reduce the dimensionality ofthe overall vector space of training vectors.

In accordance with the above considerations, in another embodiment, aprincipal component analysis (PCA) is performed on the training vectorset. Thus, orthogonal basis vectors of orthogonal basis 234 are derivedfrom the training set, such that the orthogonal basis vectors arespanning the training vector space. In addition, the dimensionality ofthe training vector space is reduced by selecting a limited number oforthogonal basis vectors such that only the most important orthogonalvectors, associated with the largest set of singular values (generatedby singular value decomposition of the matrix of training vectors) areretained. The selected training set basis vectors are saved for lateruse in classification model generation with one or more of availablealgorithmic structures for data set classification, such as an SVMclassifier or a CNN classifier.

In various embodiments, the systems and methods described herein providetechniques for extracting individual character images 202 from characterstrings 200 embedded in card images 310, and for subsequent utilizationof character images 202 to generate query feature vectors 232. In thenext processing step, these query feature vectors are projected ontoorthogonal basis 234 spanning the training vector space to generateprojected queries. Projected queries are subsequently applied togenerate query predictions, or predicted queries 236, as an output ofthe pre-trained classification model produced by the exemplary SVM (orCNN) classifier. These predicted queries 236 form a string of predictedcharacters, which is subsequently interpreted to generate text meaning238, and finally used to generate metadata 224 for highlights 220,enriched with real-time information read directly from card images 310.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart depicting, in more detail, a method 1000 ofclassification model generation. In at least one embodiment, method 1000commences with a step 1010 in which an exemplary training set ofcharacter images 202 is extracted from a multitude of exemplary cardimage types. Character images 202 are normalized to a standard size andillumination to form processed character images 203. Feature vectors arederived, and a labeled training set is generated. In at least oneembodiment, in a step 1020, PCA analysis is performed on the trainingset by computing orthogonal basis 234 spanning the training vectorspace. In a step 1030, a subset of orthogonal training vectors isselected. The selected training set basis vectors may be saved for queryprocessing in a step 1040. In a step 1050, classification model 165 maybe trained with the subset of orthogonal training vectors. Theclassification model and the orthogonal basis vectors may be saved, in astep 1060, for generation of future predicted queries 236.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart depicting an overall method 1100 of reading andinterpreting text fields in cards images 310, and updating metadata 224for highlights 220 with in-frame real-time information. In a step 1110,a field to be processed is selected from character boundaries 204 of thecharacters present in card image 310. In a step 1120, a group ofcharacters is extracted from a line field, and text strings arerecognized and interpreted as described above. Finally, in a step 1130,the card image reading performed on decoded video frame boundaries isembedded in metadata 224 generated for highlight 220.

The present system and method have been described in particular detailwith respect to possible embodiments. Those of skill in the art willappreciate that the system and method may be practiced in otherembodiments. First, the particular naming of the components,capitalization of terms, the attributes, data structures, or any otherprogramming or structural aspect is not mandatory or significant, andthe mechanisms and/or features may have different names, formats, orprotocols. Further, the system may be implemented via a combination ofhardware and software, or entirely in hardware elements, or entirely insoftware elements. Also, the particular division of functionalitybetween the various system components described herein is merelyexemplary, and not mandatory; functions performed by a single systemcomponent may instead be performed by multiple components, and functionsperformed by multiple components may instead be performed by a singlecomponent.

Reference in the specification to “one embodiment” or to “an embodiment”means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, describedin connection with the embodiments, is included in at least oneembodiment. The appearances of the phrases “in one embodiment” or “in atleast one embodiment” in various places in the specification are notnecessarily all referring to the same embodiment.

Various embodiments may include any number of systems and/or methods forperforming the above-described techniques, either singly or in anycombination. Another embodiment includes a computer program productcomprising a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium andcomputer program code, encoded on the medium, for causing a processor ina computing device or other electronic device to perform theabove-described techniques.

Some portions of the above are presented in terms of algorithms andsymbolic representations of operations on data bits within the memory ofa computing device. These algorithmic descriptions and representationsare the means used by those skilled in the data processing arts to mosteffectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in theart. An algorithm is here, and generally, conceived to be aself-consistent sequence of steps (instructions) leading to a desiredresult. The steps are those requiring physical manipulations of physicalquantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take theform of electrical, magnetic or optical signals capable of being stored,transferred, combined, compared and otherwise manipulated. It isconvenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, to referto these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms,numbers, or the like. Furthermore, it is also convenient at times, torefer to certain arrangements of steps requiring physical manipulationsof physical quantities as modules or code devices, without loss ofgenerality.

It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar termsare to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and aremerely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unlessspecifically stated otherwise, as apparent from the followingdiscussion, it is appreciated that throughout the description,discussions utilizing terms such as “processing” or “computing” or“calculating” or “displaying” or “determining” or the like, refer to theaction and processes of a computer system, or similar electroniccomputing module and/or device, that manipulates and transforms datarepresented as physical (electronic) quantities within the computersystem memories or registers or other such information storage,transmission or display devices.

Certain aspects include process steps and instructions described hereinin the form of an algorithm. It should be noted that the process stepsand instructions can be embodied in software, firmware and/or hardware,and when embodied in software, can be downloaded to reside on, and beoperated from, different platforms used by a variety of operatingsystems.

The present document also relates to an apparatus for performing theoperations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed for therequired purposes, or it may comprise a general-purpose computing deviceselectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored inthe computing device. Such a computer program may be stored in acomputer readable storage medium, such as, but is not limited to, anytype of disk, including floppy disks, optical disks, CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs,magnetic-optical disks, read-only memories (ROMs), random accessmemories (RAMs), EPROMs, EEPROMs, flash memory, solid state drives,magnetic or optical cards, application specific integrated circuits(ASICs), or any type of media suitable for storing electronicinstructions, and each coupled to a computer system bus. The program andits associated data may also be hosted and run remotely, for example ona server. Further, the computing devices referred to herein may includea single processor or may be architectures employing multiple processordesigns for increased computing capability.

The algorithms and displays presented herein are not inherently relatedto any particular computing device, virtualized system, or otherapparatus. Various general-purpose systems may also be used withprograms in accordance with the teachings herein, or it may proveconvenient to construct a more specialized apparatus to perform therequired method steps. The required structure for a variety of thesesystems will be apparent from the description provided herein. Inaddition, the system and method are not described with reference to anyparticular programming language. It will be appreciated that a varietyof programming languages may be used to implement the teachingsdescribed herein, and any references above to specific languages areprovided for disclosure of enablement and best mode.

Accordingly, various embodiments include software, hardware, and/orother elements for controlling a computer system, computing device, orother electronic device, or any combination or plurality thereof. Suchan electronic device may include, for example, a processor, an inputdevice such as a keyboard, mouse, touchpad, track pad, joystick,trackball, microphone, and/or any combination thereof, an output devicesuch as a screen, speaker, and/or the like, memory, long-term storagesuch as magnetic storage, optical storage, and/or the like, and/ornetwork connectivity. Such an electronic device may be portable ornon-portable. Examples of electronic devices that may be used forimplementing the described system and method include: a desktopcomputer, laptop computer, television, smartphone, tablet, music player,audio device, kiosk, set-top box, game system, wearable device, consumerelectronic device, server computer, and/or the like. An electronicdevice may use any operating system such as, for example and withoutlimitation: Linux; Microsoft Windows, available from MicrosoftCorporation of Redmond, Wash.; Mac OS X, available from Apple Inc. ofCupertino, Calif.; iOS, available from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.;Android, available from Google, Inc. of Mountain View, Calif.; and/orany other operating system that is adapted for use on the device.

While a limited number of embodiments have been described herein, thoseskilled in the art, having benefit of the above description, willappreciate that other embodiments may be devised. In addition, it shouldbe noted that the language used in the specification has beenprincipally selected for readability and instructional purposes, and maynot have been selected to delineate or circumscribe the subject matter.Accordingly, the disclosure is intended to be illustrative, but notlimiting, of scope.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for extracting metadata from a videostream, the method comprising: at a processor, receiving at least aportion of the video stream; at the processor, identifying one or morecard images embedded in one or more video frames of the portion of thevideo stream; at the processor, processing the one or more card imagesto extract text; at the processor, interpreting the text to obtainmetadata; and at a data store, storing the metadata in association withthe portion of the video stream.
 2. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: at the data store, storing the received portion of the videostream.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein: the video stream comprises atelevision broadcast of a sporting event; the portion of the videostream comprises a highlight deemed to be of particular interest to oneor more users; and the metadata is descriptive of the highlight.
 4. Themethod of claim 3, further comprising, at an output device, outputtingthe video stream concurrently with at least one of identifying the oneor more card images, processing the one or more card images, andinterpreting the text.
 5. The method of claim 3, further comprising: atan output device, outputting the highlight; and concurrently withoutputting the highlight, outputting the metadata; wherein the metadatacomprises at least one selected from the group consisting of: real-timeinformation related to the highlight; and a timeline of the card imagesfrom which the metadata have been obtained.
 6. The method of claim 1,wherein extracting the text comprises: identifying one or more characterstrings within the one or more card images; and recording a locationand/or a size of a character image of a card image of the one or morecard images that corresponds to each character of the one or morecharacter strings.
 7. The method of claim 6, wherein extracting the textfurther comprises: disambiguating character boundaries of characters ofthe one or more character strings by performing multiple comparisons ofdetected character boundaries; and purging any character boundaries thatappear too close to each other.
 8. The method of claim 6, whereinextracting the text further comprises performing image validation forcharacters of the one or more character strings by establishing acontrast ratio between low and high intensity pixel counts.
 9. Themethod of claim 1, wherein interpreting the text comprises: generatingqueries based on the text; generating a plurality of n-dimensional queryfeature vectors; projecting the n-dimensional query feature vectors ontoa training set orthogonal basis; applying the projected n-dimensionalquery feature vectors to a classification model to produce at least onepredicted query; and extracting meaning of the text from the at leastone predicted query.
 10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:generating a plurality of training set feature vectors; and using thetraining set feature vectors to derive the training set orthogonalbasis.
 11. The method of claim 9, further comprising: generating aplurality of training set feature vectors; and using the training setfeature vectors to generate the classification model.
 12. The method ofclaim 9, wherein interpreting the text further comprises using at leasttwo selections from the group consisting of: a string length of one ormore character strings within the text; a position of characterboundaries and/or characters within the text; and a horizontal positionof character boundaries and/or characters within the text.
 13. Themethod of claim 9, wherein storing the metadata in association with theportion of the video stream comprises storing a video frame number ofthe one or more video frames, associated with queries.
 14. The method ofclaim 1, wherein interpreting the text comprises: ascertaining fieldpositions of characters of one or more character strings of the text;ascertaining alphanumeric values of the characters; and using the fieldpositions and alphanumeric values to sequentially interpret the one ormore character strings.
 15. The method of claim 14, wherein interpretingthe text further comprises: obtaining positional and other informationregarding one or more card fields of each of the card images; and usingthe positional and other information to compensate for one or morepossible missing front characters of the one or more character strings.16. A method for generating a classification model for extractingmetadata from a video stream, the method comprising: at a processor,receiving at least a portion of the video stream; at a processor,identifying one or more card images embedded in one or more video framesof the portion of the video stream; at the processor, processing the oneor more card images to extract a plurality of character images, each ifwhich contains a character; at the processor, generating trainingfeature vectors associated with the character images; at the processor,processing the training feature vectors in a manner that: increasesuniqueness of the training feature vectors; increases mutual numericdistance of the training feature vectors; and/or reduces dimensionalityof an overall vector space containing the training feature vectors; atthe processor, using at least some of the training feature vectors totrain a classification model; and at a data store, storing theclassification model.
 17. The method of claim 16, further comprising: atthe data store, storing the received portion of the video stream. 18.The method of claim 16, further comprising, at the processor, prior togenerating the training feature vectors, normalizing the characterimages to a standard size and/or a standard illumination.
 19. The methodof claim 16, wherein generating the training feature vectors comprisesformatting a set of n pixels extracted from the character images inton-dimensional vectors.
 20. The method of claim 16, further comprising,at the processor, performing a principal component analysis on thetraining feature vectors; wherein using at least some of the trainingfeature vectors to train the classification model comprises: selecting asubset of the training feature vectors that are orthogonal basisvectors; and using the orthogonal basis vectors to train theclassification model.
 21. The method of claim 20, wherein: theorthogonal basis vectors span the overall vector space; reducing thedimensionality of the overall vector space comprises selecting a limitednumber of the orthogonal basis vectors; reducing the dimensionality ofthe overall vector space further comprises selecting only orthogonalbasis vectors that correspond to a largest set of singular valuesderived from a matrix of the orthogonal basis vectors; storing theclassification model comprises storing a limited number of theorthogonal basis vectors for subsequent use in classification modelgeneration and/or query processing; and/or generating the classificationmodel comprises using a limited number of the orthogonal basis vectorsin conjunction with a machine learning algorithm selected from the groupconsisting of SVM and CNN.
 22. The method of claim 16, furthercomprising: at the processor, processing the one or more card images toextract text; at the processor, interpreting the text to obtainmetadata; at the data store, storing the metadata in association withthe portion of the video stream; at an output device, outputting theportion of the video stream; and at the output device, concurrently withoutputting the portion of the video stream, outputting the metadata;wherein: the video stream comprises a broadcast of a sporting event; theportion of the video stream comprises a highlight deemed to be ofparticular interest to one or more users; and the metadata isdescriptive of the highlight.
 23. The method of claim 22, whereinextracting the text comprises extracting text strings of the text asqueries.
 24. The method of claim 22, wherein extracting the textcomprises extracting at least one of: of a current time within thesporting event; a current phase of the sporting event; a game clockpertaining to the sporting event; and a game score pertaining to thesporting event.
 25. A non-transitory computer-readable medium forextracting metadata from a video stream, comprising instructions storedthereon, that when executed by a processor, perform the steps of:receiving at least a portion of the video stream; identifying one ormore card images embedded in one or more video frames of the portion ofthe video stream; processing the one or more card images to extracttext; interpreting the text to obtain metadata; and causing a data storeto store the metadata in association with the portion of the videostream.
 26. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 25,wherein: the video stream comprises a television broadcast of a sportingevent; the portion of the video stream comprises a highlight deemed tobe of particular interest to one or more users; and the metadata isdescriptive of the highlight.
 27. The non-transitory computer-readablemedium of claim 26, further comprising instructions stored thereon, thatwhen executed by a processor, cause an output device to output the videostream concurrently with at least one of identifying the one or morecard images, processing the one or more card images, and interpretingthe text.
 28. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 26,further comprising instructions stored thereon, that when executed by aprocessor: cause an output device to output the highlight; andconcurrently with outputting the highlight, output the metadata; whereinthe metadata comprises at least one selected from the group consistingof: real-time information related to the highlight; and a timeline ofthe card images from which the metadata have been obtained.
 29. Thenon-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 25, wherein extractingthe text comprises: identifying one or more character strings within theone or more card images; and recording a location and/or a size of acharacter image of a card image of the one or more card images thatcorresponds to each character of the one or more character strings. 30.The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 25, whereininterpreting the text comprises: generating queries based on the text;generating a plurality of n-dimensional query feature vectors;projecting the n-dimensional query feature vectors onto a training setorthogonal basis; applying the projected n-dimensional query featurevectors to a classification model to produce at least one predictedquery; and extracting meaning of the text from the at least onepredicted query.
 31. The non-transitory computer-readable medium ofclaim 30, further comprising instructions stored thereon, that whenexecuted by a processor: generate a plurality of training set featurevectors; and use the training set feature vectors to derive the trainingset orthogonal basis and/or generate the classification model.
 32. Thenon-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 25, whereininterpreting the text comprises: ascertaining field positions ofcharacters of one or more character strings of the text; ascertainingalphanumeric values of the characters; and using the field positions andalphanumeric values to sequentially interpret the one or more characterstrings.
 33. A non-transitory computer-readable medium for generating aclassification model for extracting metadata from a video stream,comprising instructions stored thereon, that when executed by aprocessor, perform the steps of: receiving at least a portion of thevideo stream; identifying one or more card images embedded in one ormore video frames of the portion of the video stream; processing the oneor more card images to extract a plurality of character images, each ifwhich contains a character; generating training feature vectorsassociated with the character images; processing the training featurevectors in a manner that: increases uniqueness of the training featurevectors; increases mutual numeric distance of the training featurevectors; and/or reduces dimensionality of an overall vector spacecontaining the training feature vectors; using at least some of thetraining feature vectors to train a classification model; and causing adata store to store the classification model.
 34. The non-transitorycomputer-readable medium of claim 33, further comprising instructionsstored thereon, that when executed by a processor, perform a principalcomponent analysis on the training feature vectors; wherein using atleast some of the training feature vectors to train the classificationmodel comprises: selecting a subset of the training feature vectors thatare orthogonal basis vectors; and using the orthogonal basis vectors totrain the classification model.
 35. The non-transitory computer-readablemedium of claim 34, wherein: the orthogonal basis vectors span theoverall vector space; reducing the dimensionality of the overall vectorspace comprises selecting a limited number of the orthogonal basisvectors; reducing the dimensionality of the overall vector space furthercomprises selecting only orthogonal basis vectors that correspond to alargest set of singular values derived from a matrix of the orthogonalbasis vectors; storing the classification model comprises storing alimited number of the orthogonal basis vectors for subsequent use inclassification model generation and/or query processing; and/orgenerating the classification model comprises using a limited number ofthe orthogonal basis vectors in conjunction with a machine learningalgorithm selected from the group consisting of SVM and CNN.
 36. Thenon-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 33, further comprisinginstructions stored thereon, that when executed by a processor, performthe steps of: processing the one or more card images to extract text;interpreting the text to obtain metadata; causing the data store tostore the metadata in association with the portion of the video stream;causing an output device to output the portion of the video stream; andcausing the output device, concurrently with outputting the portion ofthe video stream, to output the metadata; wherein: the video streamcomprises a broadcast of a sporting event; the portion of the videostream comprises a highlight deemed to be of particular interest to oneor more users; and the metadata is descriptive of the highlight.
 37. Asystem for extracting metadata from a video stream, the systemcomprising: a processor configured to: receive at least a portion of thevideo stream; identify one or more card images embedded in one or morevideo frames of the portion of the video stream; process the one or morecard images to extract text; and interpret the text to obtain metadata;and a data store configured to store the metadata in association withthe portion of the video stream.
 38. The system of claim 37, wherein:the video stream comprises a television broadcast of a sporting event;the portion of the video stream comprises a highlight deemed to be ofparticular interest to one or more users; and the metadata isdescriptive of the highlight.
 39. The system of claim 38, furthercomprising an output device configured to output the video streamconcurrently with at least one of identifying the one or more cardimages, processing the one or more card images, and interpreting thetext.
 40. The system of claim 38, further comprising an output deviceconfigured to output the highlight; wherein: the processor is furtherconfigured to, concurrently with outputting the highlight, output themetadata; and the metadata comprises at least one selected from thegroup consisting of: real-time information related to the highlight; anda timeline of the card images from which the metadata have beenobtained.
 41. The system of claim 37, wherein the processor is furtherconfigured to extract the text by: identifying one or more characterstrings within the one or more card images; and recording a locationand/or a size of a character image of a card image of the one or morecard images that corresponds to each character of the one or morecharacter strings.
 42. The system of claim 37, wherein the processor isfurther configured to interpret the text by: generating queries based onthe text; generating a plurality of n-dimensional query feature vectors;projecting the n-dimensional query feature vectors onto a training setorthogonal basis; applying the projected n-dimensional query featurevectors to a classification model to produce at least one predictedquery; and extracting meaning of the text from the at least onepredicted query.
 43. The system of claim 42, wherein the processor isfurther configured to: generate a plurality of training set featurevectors; and use the training set feature vectors to derive the trainingset orthogonal basis and/or generate the classification model.
 44. Thesystem of claim 37, wherein the processor is further configured tointerpret the text by: ascertaining field positions of characters of oneor more character strings of the text; ascertaining alphanumeric valuesof the characters; and using the field positions and alphanumeric valuesto sequentially interpret the one or more character strings.
 45. Asystem for generating a classification model for extracting metadatafrom a video stream, the system comprising: a processor configured to:receive at least a portion of the video stream; identify one or morecard images embedded in one or more video frames of the portion of thevideo stream; process the one or more card images to extract a pluralityof character images, each if which contains a character; generatetraining feature vectors associated with the character images; processthe training feature vectors in a manner that: increases uniqueness ofthe training feature vectors; increases mutual numeric distance of thetraining feature vectors; and/or reduces dimensionality of an overallvector space containing the training feature vectors; and use at leastsome of the training feature vectors to train a classification model;and a data store configured to store the classification model.
 46. Thesystem of claim 45, wherein the processor is further configured to:perform a principal component analysis on the training feature vectors;and use at least some of the training feature vectors to train theclassification model by: selecting a subset of the training featurevectors that are orthogonal basis vectors; and using the orthogonalbasis vectors to train the classification model.
 47. The system of claim46, wherein: the orthogonal basis vectors span the overall vector space;and the processor is further configured to reduce the dimensionality ofthe overall vector space by selecting a limited number of the orthogonalbasis vectors; the processor is further configured to reduce thedimensionality of the overall vector space by selecting only orthogonalbasis vectors that correspond to a largest set of singular valuesderived from a matrix of the orthogonal basis vectors; the data store isfurther configured to store the classification model by storing alimited number of the orthogonal basis vectors for subsequent use inclassification model generation and/or query processing; and/or theprocessor is further configured to generate the classification model byusing a limited number of the orthogonal basis vectors in conjunctionwith a machine learning algorithm selected from the group consisting ofSVM and CNN.
 48. The system of claim 45, wherein: the processor isfurther configured to: process the one or more card images to extracttext; and interpret the text to obtain metadata; the data store isfurther configured to store the metadata in association with the portionof the video stream; the system further comprises an output deviceconfigured to: output the portion of the video stream; and concurrentlywith outputting the portion of the video stream, output the metadata;the video stream comprises a broadcast of a sporting event; the portionof the video stream comprises a highlight deemed to be of particularinterest to one or more users; and the metadata is descriptive of thehighlight.